Battle of Okinawa

US forces under Operation Iceberg landed in the Kerama Islands on 26 March 1945 and on the west coast of Okinawa Island on 1 April, quickly taking the Yomitan (North) and Kadena (Central) airfields. The Japanese 32nd Army under Lt. Gen. Ushijima Mitsuru, commanding from tunnels beneath Shuri Castle, chose not to contest the beaches and instead fought a protracted defence on the ridges north of Shuri, including Kakazu.

After weeks of attritional fighting the 32nd Army abandoned Shuri in late May and withdrew to the southern tip of the island, where large numbers of civilians had already taken refuge. Naval forces under Rear Adm. Ota Minoru were destroyed on the Oroku peninsula in mid-June. Organised resistance is generally dated as ending on 23 June 1945 with the death of Ushijima at Mabuni (some sources give 22 June); the formal surrender of Japanese forces in the Ryukyus was signed on 7 September. The US commander, Lt. Gen. Simon B. Buckner Jr., was also killed in June.

Okinawa Prefecture's long-standing estimate gives 200,656 dead in total: 65,908 Japanese servicemen from other prefectures, 28,228 Okinawan soldiers and military employees, about 94,000 Okinawan civilians, and 12,520 Americans. These figures are estimates made in the 1950s and other counts differ. Student units such as the Himeyuri and Shiraume nursing corps were mobilised, and civilian deaths included cases of so-called group suicide, whose circumstances and the degree of military involvement remain a subject of historical and legal debate.

The battle was accompanied by massed kamikaze attacks launched from Kyushu bases and by the sortie of the battleship Yamato. 23 June is observed in Okinawa as Irei no Hi (Memorial Day), and the Cornerstone of Peace at Mabuni is inscribed with the names of the dead of all nationalities.